THE LIMBO YEARS

After Louis Riel's death, the Metis dispersed and submerged-- both as a nation and as a race. "For many of them, the world was a cesspool of unemployment, social ostracism by whites, spiritual and physical degradation, hunger, long-term malnutrition, disease and squalor." In some areas they survived as extended families or colonies. Many simply faded into the background as another kind of non-status Indian. There were sporadic and unsuccessful attempts at forming Metis reserves but these were short lived. However, smouldering just below the surface of the Metis social consciousness were the seeds of a resurrection. As early as 1887 a group founded the L'Union Metisse St. Joseph, "whose purpose was to defend the role of the Metis" in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. It was an historical society dedicated to keeping the historical record straight in regards to the Metis role in the development of the west. There were also sporadic attempts at land claims, with some minor successes. This will be developed in more detail later.

After the turn of the century, changes were taking place on a global scale which totally submerged not only the Metis, but Canadians as well. World War I focused the energy and resources of the entire nation on concerns across the seas. Later, during the twenties, most people were too caught up in the heady and turbulent post-war reconstruction to pay any heed to the Metis cause. The Metis themselves were adjusting to the buffeting of this period. Metis who had gone overseas to fight on the battle ground of Europe acquitted themselves honourably and bravely in the service of their country. Many won medals for service beyond the call of duty. Many more lost their lives or were wounded. When they returned, they were still confronted with the same prejudice, the same unemployment and the same social ostracism of an ungrateful white society.

It wasn't until the thirties that the Metis were able to once again assert themselves in a political manner. It took a depression to accomplish this. During the thirties white society finally found out what it was like to live like a Metis. The whites did not like it. The Union movement gained a new impetus and many reforms were demanded throughout the land. A great clamour went up for jobs, housing, social justice -- the very things that had been denied the Metis. Canadians, during the thirties, were still as unsympathetic toward the Metis plight as before; however, some of the social reforms that were called for would benefit the Metis. There was some hope that, through poltical organization, adjustments to the Metis way of life could be realized. The leadership was there -- some Metis had been active in political roles in Indian associations for many years.

This was the beginning of a new militancy. The new associations that developed all had the same raison d'etreÛto "protest against the opposition of foreign authority, rules and regulations". Land claims were most often the central issue and the early successes of these groups led to heavy government opposition.

The reserve Indian suffered the greatest interference from the government. The Indian Act, for example, forbade any person to request from any Indian "any payment or contribution for the purposes of raising a fund or providing money for the prosecution of any claim", on pain of imprisonment or fine. As late as 1969 the limit that an Indian was allowed to contribute to an organization was twenty-five cents per capita.

Since confederation the federal government, regardless of the party in power, had utilized a variety of techniques to thwart any organization of native peoples. The government controlled such things as financing, attendance at meetings, and often withdrew support at critical stages of development. In the west, the R.C.M.P. was used to harass and persecute group leaders. Band support was forbidden and the Indian AgentÛwho in almost all cases was whiteÛhad a whole range of interference and discreditation tactics open to him, including the threat and exercise of legal enfranchisement.

In spite of the hardships that Indian organizations were forced to endure, some did manage to survive. Often "the ghost in the machine" of these organizations were, in fact, Metis people. During the thirties and forties the Indian groups became less and less able to tolerate the Metis presence in their organizations. This occurred mainly because the difference between status and non-status Indians within these structures became more pronounced. Also, about this time, the prairie provinces were beginning to consider the specific plight of the Metis and some governments accepted the Metis as a provincial responsibility.

Another world war and the participation in the armed forces by native peoples (which was the highest per capita voluntary enlistment in the country) served to further heighten political awareness and public response. When the veterans returned to their homes, the government found it was no longer able to exercise the type of dictatorial control that it had formerly wielded The native veterans had fought racism in foreign lands and were not content to meekly accept a similar fascist attitude in their own land. Even though the government was no longer able to exercise direct legal or financial control of the Indian organizations, the basic government tactics of obstruction remained the same. In Manitoba the native people were able, by 1954, to organize an annual Indian and Metis conference.

THE DECADE OF THE RADICAL

The policy of the government throughout this period was to pursue a course of action that would encourage assimilation. The reasoning behind this was the mistaken notion that merely by "educating" the native, government could expect him to automatically drift into the mainstream of society and disappear forever as an ethnic entity. Indian children by the thousands were wrenched from their homes and forcibly incarcerated in "residential schools" hundreds of miles from their homes. The horror stories from the institutions of higher learning have been well documented and are part of a shameful past that Canadians would just as soon forget.

If Indians were the victims of federal bureaucratic abuse, the Metis fared little better under provincial jurisdiction. During the fifties and early sixties, the "graduates" of the residential school system found the depressed reserve life unable to support the newly "educated" Indian. More and more of them left the reserve to settle in the city along with their enfranchised brothers and Metis cousins. This created the phenomenon of the urban Indian. Generally speaking, these new urban Indians were under thirty, better educated, more aware, and less willing to accept discrimination. In 1961 they formed an organization called the National Indian Council, and a new phrase was introduced to the Indian vocabulary -- 'Red Power'.

The new leadership was far more vocal, and more articulate, than it had been in the past. The news media was actively courted and certain politically oriented Indians attained celebrity status in the white media. During the short-lived existence of the National Indian Council, the leadership was about equally divided between Metis, non-status, and registered Indians. Most of the members were people who had a foot in both the white and Indian worlds. They often held government jobs, or in some cases were retired from the armed forces. Their skills in organization were more of a bureaucratic nature than a sophisticated political one. The National Indian Council had little or no credibility with the reserve and rural Indians or the Metis communities. The top-heavy structure was viewed with suspicion by the grass roots because it seemed to be all chiefs and no Indians.

This, unfortunately, gave the government an opportunity to question the base of National Indian Council's representation. The government finally withdrew financial support, which ultimately sealed the National Indian Council's doom. Ironically, a white organization called the Indian-Eskimo Association which was set up by white liberals as a support group to Indian and Metis organizations, continued to get government funding. The organizerÛbehind the scenesÛwas an Air Force retired officer, Ernie McEwan, who had developed the Air Forces' 10BX plan for physical fitness. He believed that if there was a simple recipe for physical fitness, then all one had to do was devise the same type of plan in an organizational context and, presto, instant organization -- like instant coffee. The I.E.A. would teach Indian groups Robert's Rules of Order:-- how to run meetings, keep minutes, etc., and generally engage in "do-gooder" types of activities. It also provided a vehicle whereby "responsible" whites could keep an eye on Indian activities under the guise of support. The fact that the whites competed for the same organizational funding from governments that Indians needed was never viewed as a contradiction of purpose by these white, liberal do-gooders. This was, and still is, a source of contention between the two groups.

In the United States, by the late fifties, a trend toward liberalism was developing, along with a growing Black nationalism. These trends spilled over into Canada and Canadians were forced to re-examine their attitudes toward their racial minorities: black, red, and yellow. The red or Indian minority got the most attention. "From 1960 onwards, the Canadian public became obsessed with its most vocal minority, the Indians." The cultural mosaic became the theme of the Trudeau government -- an idea, incidentally, that Louis Riel had proposed 100 years earlier. Lamontagne, a Liberal cabinet minister, became the champion of a kind of dehyphenated Canadianism. A Royal Commission on Multiculturalism was convened and their report recommended funding multicultural initiatives-- wherever they came from. The Trudeau braintrust had outdone themselves. The Liberals had devised a plan whereby minorities could maintain ethnic eccentricities and pecularities without the basic rights of self-determination.

TABLE 3

In the U.S. the civil rights movement had evolved into a Black power movement. The U.S. was forced to make concessions to the louder and louder demands of all sorts of groups. Vast amounts of federal and state money was disbursed to any group

that could articulate its demands loudly enough. If this was happening in the States, could Canada be far behind? The Native People of Canada soon noticed that the "squeaky wheels were getting the grease". Middle class radicals of all sorts were shouting and marching for one cause or another. The more they agitated, the more willing the government was to give them money. The white "radical" organizations were flourishing. As for the natives, they realized that the ground rules for dealing with the government had changed. Where in the past years only docile "yes sireÛno sire" type organizations could hope for funding, now we had a situation where the more you marched and demonstrated, the greater the guarantee of financing from the government.

The Native People responded as they had been doing for thousands of years. They changed themselvesÛthis time to suit the demands of the government. If it was marches and demonstrations that got you money, then they would march and demonstrate. The native movement even developed confrontation tactics that attracted serious revolutionaries from Black Panther and Maoist camps as well as French Canadian separatists. The natives were merely utilizing their natural "response-ability". There was the odd native leader who took the new methods more seriously. Among them was Howard Adams, a Berkeley-based Metis, who contributed to the confrontation techniques used mainly in Saskatchewan.

The media, as might be expected, developed an immediate love affair with the notion of "our own red power radicals". During the sixties, these "media-revolutionaries" garnered a great deal of coverage. The grass roots Indians, on the other hand, were generally suspicious of the press and tended to look upon them as the enemy. The Metis were the first to realize that the press played the role of "observer" and it wasn't long before the Metis began to actively pursue the media. They developed a profile, first within the general native movement and then more specifically as Metis. Those in the movement were beginning to understand the significance of the impact of media on the white mind. They quickly learned that revolution and show business were only a breath apart.

The Metis, in most ways, were much worse off than the Indians. With no guaranty under the Indian Act, without viable communities, without land and without treaties, the Metis were the "forgotten people". They needed both provincial and national organizations through which their needs could become known. The stated function of Metis organizations were: to identify problems, establish priorities for solution, develop awareness of government and citizen group function, gain funding and exert pressure. More often than not, in the beginning the organizations developed more in terms of ideologies and theories than proven needs.

The government took quick note that the group shouting the loudest in the early phase of the red power movement was the Metis. The Indians, because they had (at least theoretically) the mechanisms that served their needs, were less vocal than the Metis, who had none. The Trudeau "braintrust" again found the solution to the "native problem": use the mechanism of organization to de-fuse the revolutionary potential of a spontaneous movement. "Unorganized groups cannot be manipulated, but organized groups can be manipulated, in the best interest of government." A model of this de-fusing process was already in effect. The Company of Young Canadians was a perfect prototype of how the system would work. Middle class radicals had been given what amounted to a guaranteed annual income as a way of incorporating them into the government's bureaucratic structure. The government set up a similar funding mechanism for Metis organizations. Outspoken leaders were encouraged to climb aboard the government bandwagon. A standard joke among the Metis when they encountered one of their brothers dressed in buckskin jacket and sash, was to say, "Oh, are you applying for a government grant?"

As the proponents of red power became ever more visible in the media and because they advocated the notion of complete autonomy, sovereignty and separation, they created a backlash among those Metis who were looking "to become equal partners in society, while retaining a specific identity in the Canadian mosaic". Nevertheless, the movement did give rise to native consciousness and caused a broad expansion of awareness of the Indian/Metis reality in Canada, for both races. It gave rise to hundreds of local and provincial groups, most of which formed and then disbanded in their first year.

The advocates of red power were never able to develop a strong ideological base and, because of a basic lack of substance, the groups that formed around the red power premise soon folded. The people who joined these groups, however, gained valuable experience in terms of interaction with the "establishment". It also served to bring potential leaders into the area of political activity. The red power movement no longer serves any real political role in the Metis communities but it remains functional as a magnet for young Indians and Metis.

The latter part of the 1960's saw the resurgence of a Metis focus in Native affairs in Canada. The Manitoba Metis Federation, the Saskatchewan Metis Federation and the Alberta Metis Association re-emerged as strong, dynamic groups with solid grass roots support. The federal government was being swamped with requests for funding by a whole rash of new organizations, all of them claiming to be the legitimate representatives of the people. It became impossible to know where the funding should go and so the federal government pressured the stronger associations to form themselves into a national body, along the same pattern as the treaty organizations. The National Indian Brotherhood represented the Indians' concerns in Ottawa and had been able to gain direct dialogue with the federal cabinet. The government encouraged t~e Metis to do the same thing and by 1970 the Metis across Canada were on the verge of establishing provincial associations and looking toward the formation of a national body to represent them in Ottawa. If the sixties was the decade of the radical, the seventies was the decade of the Metis.

It was apparent that the hostilities between the Indians and the Metis could not be resolved. The National Indian Council had been an attempt to create a joint association to solve mutual problems, but the attempt failed. In 1968, the National Indian Council divided into two camps --The National Indian Brotherhood and the Canadian Metis Society. The Metis realized that they must develop distinct approaches based on their own particular needs for identification and recognition. The government continued to lump all "native problems" together. The Metis were continually frustrated by the failure of government to understand that programmes and grants designed to help Indians failed to solve unique Metis problems. The irony of the situation was that, "The harder the Metis worked, the more attention the Indians received".

The federal government added to this sense of frustration by bureaucratic buck-passing. "We are nothing but a political football. We are not registered Indians so whenever we have any correspondence with the federal government, they tell us to contact the provincial government, which in turn tells us we are just another ethnic group".

The emergence of the Metis Nation as a "state of mind" parallels David Bells' concept of the United Empire Loyalist as non-nation. If "a nation is a psychological entity" and "nationalism is a state of mind", the Metis can be said to be a native component of the "non-nation of modern Canada". The Metis, like the loyalists, experienced a "profound identity crisis stemming from expulsion". In the Metis case it was expulsion from active participation in Confederation as a founding nation.

The Metis found this situation particularly painful inasmuch as they, in truth, were the "real" Canadians -- in other words, the only people who were indigenous to North America, recognizing that the original Indians immigrated to these shores through Siberia, and the English and the French came from Europe. The Metis became the victims of "hyperbolic distortions of political warfare that were the operant maxims of the post-revolutionary Loyalist's solution". Faced with the paradox of being a pro-Canadian, anti-white, non-Indian, the Metis -- like the Loyalists -- had a way out of his dilemma; he created a myth that helped him survive. He insists that he is MetisÛthe "true Canadian". Unlike the Indians, who saw their separate "nations" as requiring separation from the Canadian state complete with separate boundaries, institutions and economies, the Metis Nation simply needed recognition and a fair participation in confederationÛnot unlike the manner that Newfoundland joined the Dominion. Had the Canadian government simply walked into Newfoundland and, by force of arms, dispossessed all Newfoundlanders and hung Joey Smallwood, the parallel to the Metis situation would be complete.

"National sentiments rely heavily on mythical interpretation of the past. The nationalist believes that his is a chosen people, that his ancestors were divinely inspired and hence that his nation is in a sense sacred." All of these criteria are fulfilled quite literally in both Metis oral and written history and are immediately recognizable in Riel's writings and diaries. As a conclusion, the Metis, "in an attempt to conserve their autonomy and culture", refused to assimilate into the eastern white civilization and became its victims. Unlike the United States, where ethnic groups were absorbed into the mainstream, in Canada a mosaic pattern developed. As Bell says, Canada evolved what might be called an 'accommodative' political culture. It was now up to the Metis to determine and define their role in that culture.

The Native Council of Canada had its genesis from the Canadian Metis Society. It was originally designed to act as the "group agent in Ottawa and attempt to secure, for individual provinces and territories, the funding of programs designed to meet local needs . . . to achieve full native participation in the mainstream of Canada's social, cultural and economic life". The original priorities were: aboriginal rights, land claims, housing for Metis and non-status Indians, education, native relationship with the law, employment and economic opportunities. As the organization grew, other concerns were added: cultural development, communications, children and youth, drug and alcohol abuse, environmental protection, health, recreation and social development. The Native Council did not see itself as an adversary of government but rather the approach was to play an advisory role, like a "deputy minister".

The Native Council of Canada was successful on a number of levels in the realization of the stated goals of the organization. National representation was now stabilized and government funding became consistent. The Native Council of Canada developed an effective interface with a wide range of government bodies and institutions and penetrated the House of Commons via the question period. The Council also made contacts with the opposition parties and became very sophisticated in the ways of government. This new sophistication allowed the Council to establish a beach-head in the Federal Cabinet, something Louis Riel could not have imagined. The greatest achievement was the Native Council of Canada's resistance to the assimilation techniques of government and the renewed determination to maintain the cultural integrity of the Metis people.

The Council was not without its failures. The native organizations were now getting money, yet most of the grass roots were as badly off as they had ever been. Conflict between Metis and non-status factions within the organization was not effectively solved and the Council became over-centralized at a time when the government orientation was to decentralize. The N.C.C. failed to maintain stable national representation. Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia withdrew their participation and support from the national body. Younger leaders were reluctant to establish a council of elders, fearing their influence on Council policies. The Native Council of Canada unable to establish real power, remained content with the "paper power" afforded the organization by government. The Metis movement across Canada now needs a new cultural awakening at the grass roots level before any more political gains can be made.

ENERGY -THE NEW GOLD OF THE NORTH

As the Metis in Canada were learning to cope with their identity crisis, another crisis was developing on a global scaleÛthe energy crisis. Suddenly, in the early seventies, a great resurgence of interest in the north took place, as a result of discovery of gas and oil. Up until the energy crisis, Canadians in general had

little interest in the North and the Metis were left pretty much alone. The native people who had survived the gold rush of 1880 through 1890 were now threatened with an energy rush by multi-national corporatons as well as two levels of government. The Jesuit and Anglican missionaries of the past were now replaced by a new group of missionaries from the "Ecological Mission". They adopted the "wilderness" of the north as their last "great cause", and swarmed in, certain that their cause would be well received by the naturally ecologically conscious natives. They were shocked to find a considerable contrast between Indian and Metis attitudes toward technology. While Indians were opposed to most technological development in favour of a more traditional life style, the Metis were receptive to its introduction. Metis concerns were focused o}ri having significant input into decision-making process involved in the introduction and development of that technology. The Metis were aware of the built-in contradictions of the Indian and ecological missionaries position regarding technology. After all, the Metis saw them come to meetings spouting rhetoric, opposing technological development, then turning around and driving home on ski-doos.

For the third time in one hundred years, the Metis were faced with the same basic scenario that faced Cuthbert Grant and Louis Riel . . . the Selkirk settlements in 1816 and Batoche in 1885. Long time residents of a "wilderness" were suddenly found to be occupying (if not in actual deeded possession of) land that was of value to an external culture. Even the question of a provincial status for a territory with a native majority was a problem the government was reluctant to deal with until there were enough new immigrants to guarantee a white majority.

One of the most dangerous and glaring differences from the former scenario for the Metis today is the advent of Americanbased multi-national corporations calling the shots and being buttressed by Canadian provincial and federal policies. All the old "blind spots" in terms of cultural interface are resurfacing.

The crucial difference for the Metis, this time around, is the fact that the Canadian government is no longer the prime mover in the north, the multinational corporations areÛand the Metis is treated as a nuisance that has to be dealt with. This time because there is nowhere for the Metis to retreat to, an erroneous assumption that, "should Northern colonial development continue as it is native people will not survive as a race" has arisen. Fortunately, native people do not rely on "possession" of land to retain their identity. Even the present emphasis

on land claims had no real relationship to, or danger of establishing, sovereignty, but is a demand for a share of the dividends of Canada's "just society".

The Canadian Government is looking for a path to bring northern development into reality in terms of "national interest". But the complexity of the situation became only too evident when the Berger Commission -- intended by the government to be a cosmetic tactic -- backfired, as a result of Mr. Berger's integrity, into a full-scale issue. The support of the Metis by international bodies increases the pressure to find a solution.

The next decade is crucial to the Metis. The energy crisis of the seventies creates the last possibility of leverage for the Metis to change government policy. Two essential factors are necessary to exercise that leverage: a full understanding of the role of the aboriginal rights and land claims (in the new scenario) and the necessity to foster a rebirth of recognition of the value of Metis consciousness among both the Metis and the Whites alike.